Name: Rex Stocklin
Stats:
Age: 41 years old
Marital Status: Married 3 years...to Suzanne Rampton
Family: no kids- 2 cats (1 Cornish Rex, Dave and 1 Devon Rex, Clark - no
we're not getting a Selkirk Rex and calling it Five)
Occupation: I'm a Self-employed graphic designer (specialize in corporate
identity design - logos, business reports) for 3 years
Education: B.S. Chemical Engineering, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology,
Terre Haute, IN
Hobbies:
Favorite Sports Teams: Indiana Pacers, Indiana Hoosiers, Miami Dolphins,
Cincinnati Reds, Notre Dame Fighting Irish
Favorite cheap eats: Taco Bell 4-Alarm tacos & green burritos, Big Macs,
White Castle Cheeseburgers, KFC extra-crispy, gyros, oreos, beer-battered
onion rings & poppers
I live in Marina del Rey, CA and was born on March 5th, 1956 in Rushville,
IN. I lived in Indianapolis most of my life. Then a groovy thing happened,
I met my wife-to-be on-line. She lived in Los Angeles where she was an Exec
VP of a major ad agency, so while I was on leave from Microsoft, I traipsed
to California, married my wife. On the dark side of the ledger, in 1995 I
had a massive stroke. While it did not effect my cognitive or speech
centers, it did render much of my body's left side useless (esp. my left
arm/hand, which makes for poor guitar playing!!!) . Unfortunately the
stroke has taken away my ability to do sports. I've done some pretty
interesting things in my life. I used to be a docent at the Indianapolis
Zoo interpreting the forest, desert & marine biomes to the public. I worked
in the oilfields of Oklahoma as an engineer-in-training. But I found the
work too noisy (worked within a clot of diesel engines at 120dB), too messy
(stood up to my gonads in chemical miasmas designed for oilwell treatment),
too hot (picture it: diesel engines in the hot summer clay plains of
okie-land) and too damn dangerous (tornadoes, co-workers fresh from prison,
high pressure detonation of cast iron piping). I went to a prestigious but
little known (outside of industry) school in Terre Haute, IN called
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, where I graduated with a BS in
Chemical Engineering. Failing at that I tried my hand variously at
restaurant mgmt., retail mgmt., & software marketing (I was a regional
sales rep with Microsoft, covering all schools in the states of KY, OH, IL,
and IN) before settling on a mid-life career move into graphic desgn. I'm
in limbo in the UCLA Visual Arts Certification Program as a result of my
stroke. But, I've had some work published and got the chops, so everyone
tells me & I love doing it. So.......
As far as my Heepology, I steadfastly collected their output throughout
Byron's career with them and even with his "Take No Prisoners" LP. But to
me after he left, then especially after Ken left, Uriah Heep ceased to be.
This "new" band can be stunningly good at times, to wit..."Sea of Light".
But that Heep magical chemistry is way gone.
I do plan on a web presence as soon as I finish Laura Lemay's HTML 4 book,
but prolly not another Heepsite, there are so many of them already, I don't
know what l'il ole me could bring to the party. I think I'll devote a site
to my other fave band, Ambrosia. Plus a professional site for my sdesign
work, one for my wife's consultancy, one for stroke survivors and a general
fun & games wordplay site. So see ya all on the web and maybe even at a
Heepvention.
- listening to all forms of music
- baby boomer nostalgia
- reference books
- b&w photography
- maps & globes
- impressionist, expressionist & cubist art
- study of nuclear, chemical & biologicaal (NBC) warfare & emerging disease
(public policy, int'l law, ecology effects)
- stand-up & improv humor
- collecting Xmas ornaments, first-day sstamp covers, Absolut ads & colognes
(weird, huh?)
- movies (esp.farce, film noir & sci-fi))
- gourmet cuisine (esp. southwestern, thhai, german, szechuan, russian,
polish, cal-french, tex-mex, oaxacan, cuban, cajun, creole & soul food)
- graphic design of all kinds
- sports cars (esp. Porsche)
- travel (esp. Japan, Austrailia/NZ, Gerrmany, Scotland, Greece, Hawaii, the
Southwest, Chicago, the mountains - Vail, San Francisco, D. C. and the U.
P. of Michigan)
- wordplay & puzzles (esp. crossword, jiigsaw, cryptics, logic, brain-teasers)
- board games
- sports (viewing - basketball, footballl, Indy-car racing, all summer &
winter olympic sports, extreme sports; participating - basketball,
volleyball, handball, football, bicycling, bowling, golf, downhill &
crosscountry skiing, sailing, ping-pong & swimming)
- chewing the fat
- chewing the scenery, i.e. - acting.
- sex & women-watching (but I keep withiin bounds here)
- computers (esp. Macs and Amigas)
- tornado-chasing
- science and mathematics
- reading
- news of the weird, Letterman's top tenns and sniglets
- architecture (esp. Art Deco, modern & Bauhaus)
- guitar (used to play electric, classiccal, acoustic & 12-string before the
stroke, now nothing)
- word & trivia games (prolly my biggestt area of current interest
considering my shut-in condition)
- comic books (mostly from from the 60'ss and the Watchmen)
- comics (esp. BC, Herman, Far Side, Blooom County and The Tick)
- TV theme songs (silly, huh?)
- computer font design
Favorite Musical Artists: Ambrosia, Uriah Heep, Phil Keaggy, Crowded House,
The Church, The Fixx, Concrete Blond, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Garbage,
Joan Osborne, Daniel Amos, The 77s, Neil Young, Bruce Cockburn, Jellyfish,
The Cure, ELP, Yes, U2, R.E.M., Santana, Squeeze, Alan Parsons Project,
John Mellencamp, Laura Nyro, Mel Torme, Henry Mancini, Chopin, Grieg,
Dvorak, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky
Favorite Authors: Stephen King, John Irving, Pat Conroy, Amy Tan, Saul
Bellow, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Mark Twain, E.L. Doctorow, Michael Crichton,
James Michener, Dietrich Bonhoffer, C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaffer
Favorite Artists: Andrew Wyeth, Miro, Picasso, Magritte, Klee, Van Gogh,
Matisse, Tamayo, Ralph Steadman, Gerald Scarfe, Hirshfield
Favorite Photogs: Ansel Adams, Robert Mapplethorpe, Herb Ritts, Diane Arbus
and Richard Avedon
Favorite Architects: Pei, Gehry, Graves, Gaudi & Wright
Favorite TV shows: Seinfeld, Star Trek: TOS, MASH, Frasier, Hill St. Blues,
Latn Night with David Letterman, JAG, The Pretender, The X-Files, The
Simpsons, The Drew Carey Show, Wise Guy, The Equalizer, Batman, The Famous
Teddy Z, Mission Impossible, The Paper Chase, Monty Python, Third Rock from
the Sun, L.A. Law, Allie McBeal, ER, St. Elsewhere, Newhart, Jeopardy, Mike
& Maty, The Rosie O'Donnell Show, Loony Toons, The Tick, South Park, The
Outer Limits, Talk Soup, SNL (the early years)
Favorite Movies: too numerous to mention, but of recent movies: The Usual
Suspects, Sling Blade, The Shawshank Redemption, The Ice Storm, L. A.
Confidential, As Good as it Gets, Grosse Pointe Blank, Men in Black, Air
Force One, Copland, Wag the Dog, Ulee's Gold, The Sweet Hereafter, Starship
Troopers, Waiting for Guffman, Face-Off, Alien Resurrection, Tomorrow Never
Dies, Liar Liar, Night Falls on Manhattan, Donnie Brasco, Elvis Meets Nixon
Turn-Ons: great-tasting food, random acts of kindness, sense of humor, the
perfect cheer, mountain air, the gurgle of Offy-powered roadsters
Turn-Offs: cigarette breath, rude buttholes, being PC, PCs (Hey, I've
edited a few config.sys files in my life, so I know whereof I speak),
lawsuits, cilantro & garlic in everything, people who don't get it, paper
cuts, dirty fingernails
1st Heep: I heard Why on a local FM station (Indianapolis' WNAP).
1st Heep LP:Salisbury
1st Heep concert:1971 in Indianapolis, IN (opened for 3 Dog Night, I was
blown away by Heep, my first "real" rock concert)
Favorite Heep albums: Look at Yourself, Salisbury, Demon & Wizards
Favorite Heep song: If I Had the Time
Favorite Heep sound: Ken's and David's harmonies soaring over the leslied
chuff of the B3 and Mick's T-Rex wah wah
Biggest Heep moment: finding that Ken had found the Lord
Biggest Heep disappointment: the deaths of Thain & Byron (& the resultant
selfish realization that like The Beatles sans Lennon, I'll never be able
to see my most influential 70's band again.
